In recent years, with the widespread use of smartphones and the like, there has generally been a tendency for a person to carry one or more wireless communication terminals (each of which may also be referred to a station (STA)). Particularly, in a place where many people gather, such as a rail station or an event site, a frequency band that is used for the wireless LAN is considerably congested because wireless access points (AP) that use a wireless LAN or the wireless communication terminals converge and a communication failure may be caused.
A main reason for the wireless congestion in this context is the periodic transmission of an access point search packet that is sent out such as when a beacon is sent out from the wireless access point, when an AP inquiry (a probe request) is made by the wireless communication terminal, or when a response (a probe response) to the AP inquiry is made by the wireless access point. Normally, because a low-speed communication scheme is used for the transmission of these packets, the time that is occupied by each of the packets is relatively long. Consequently, the communication of these packets limits more opportunities for actual data communication from being provided, and thus causes a problem in that not only is bandwidth utilization efficiency decreased, but also a communication failure is caused.